


Like There's Nobody Watching

by Randominity



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Blow Jobs, Dare, Drinking Games, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:34:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randominity/pseuds/Randominity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I dare you to do it," Harry says, and Zayn scoffs.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Are you serious?" he asks.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Oh, here we go," Liam says, half fond and half exasperated.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Louis' eyes are narrowed as well, and he bares his teeth at Harry. "Dare me to what?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I dare you," Harry says, "to have a wank in the same room as all of us, where we can't tell you're doing it."</i>
</p><p>Or, the one where Louis can’t turn down a dare and too much information is had by all. But mostly Zayn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like There's Nobody Watching

"Well, I'll start it off easy," Harry says, stretching out his arm and eyeing his shot glass. "Never have I ever...." He bites his lip thoughtfully. "Had a wank in the same room as any of you lads." He raises his shot glass expectantly and casts his gaze around the room. Zayn cradles his shot and smirks at Harry, because wanking is always an easy starter, but they've nowhere to go but down from there.

"Wait, wait, wait," Louis says, shot glass between his fingers. "What are we counting as a room? Does the tour bus count as a room?"

"Yes," Harry says. "For the purposes of this question, the tour bus counts as a room."

"The _entire_ tour bus?" Louis asks. "Or just parts of the bus? Like, we could say the lounge is a room, and the kitchen is a room, and the bunk area is a room. Do the individual bunks count as rooms?"

Niall turns to face him, aghast. "Tell me you've not had a wank while bunking with one of us," he says.

Louis shrugs. "I wouldn't have a drink if it was individual bunks, mate, I'm just asking."

"You always have to make it so complicated," Niall tells him. "It's not a maths equation, we don't need to know how fucking fast the train is travelling."

"I just want to know what it is I'm answering," Louis says calmly. 

"Individual bunks, no," Harry says. "Parts of the bus, yes. Bunk area, yes. Does that answer your questions?"

"Does it have to have been to orgasm," Louis asks, "or does it count if you just tickle for a bit?"

"Jesus Christ," Niall says, and Zayn ducks his head to smile. The mental images alone are worth this line of questioning.

Harry sighs, but he's fighting a grin as well. "Have you come before in the same room as any one of us," he says. "Does that answer all your questions?"

"I've quite finished, yes," Louis says, "cheers," and he takes a shot, along with the rest of them.

"Right," Liam says, for the next round. "So... never have I ever had a wank in the same room as any of you, _without_ you knowing about it."

Niall raises his shot glass as a toast and tips his head back, but Louis says, "no no no no, dear Niall, _please_."

Niall pauses mid-sip. "What?"

"Literally no-one _doesn't_ know when you're having a wank," Louis says, and Niall's mouth drops open, cheeks staining with red not already caused by the liquor. Zayn winces sympathetically.

"Nobody's ever said anything before," he protests.

"We just put our pillows over our heads or something, mate," Louis tells him, patting his knee. "Sorry you had to find out this way."

"Harry," Niall turns to him, and Harry shakes his head.

"Sorry," he says, biting his lip. "You can get kind of... loud, sometimes."

"I mean, it's all right, really," Liam says. "It's good to enjoy yourself and everything."

"Fucking right," Niall mutters, but sets his shot glass down. "Like the lot of you are quiet."

"Well, none of us rushed to drink either, you'll notice," Louis points out. "Niall's out; anyone else?"

"I'm pretty sure I've gotten vocal a time or two, on the bus," Harry admits. "I've just kind of... hoped everyone was sleeping, or nobody could hear it over the motor."

"If everyone's sleeping it doesn't count," Louis declares. "Or does it count? Liam, does it count if everyone else is sleeping?"

Liam frowns in thought. "I never really... okay, okay," he nods. "That's fair. You can't have got away with it if everyone's sleeping. There."

"Then you tell me if I should drink," Harry says.

"Yeah, you... should probably not drink," Zayn says, shrugging one shoulder as he smiles at Harry apologetically. Harry frowns at him in agreement, and pushes his shot glass away.

"Well, I've never had a wank in the room with any of you except on the bus," Liam says, "so I'm gonna have to pass on the shot as well."

"Cool," Louis says. "Well, _I've_ had a wank in the room with at least three of you, so stop me if you've heard this one." He lifts the shot glass like it's a food airplane, buzzing with his lips and swooping it through the air back and forth in front of his face.

Everyone turns to him. "You have not," Harry says indignantly. "You've only ever roomed with me, so that would mean--"

"Louis, have you been wanking when we get together to watch movies?" Liam asks, obviously trying hard to think back and remember. "Have you had a wank _on my bed_ while we've been laying around watching movies?" Louis nods, still buzzing and carrying the shot glass through the air.

Zayn grins at him, impressed. "That's sick," he says. "Nice work, me too," and when he holds his hand out, Louis raises impressed eyebrows at him and slaps his palm, grinning back before downing his shot.

"When has this been happening?" Liam demands. "This wasn't when we were watching _Tangled_ , was it?"

Zayn grimaces around the mouthful of his shot and glares at Liam, truly offended. It's a Disney movie, for fuck's sake. "What do you take me for?" he asks.

"It was probably when we were watching _Wanted_ ," Harry says.

"Yeah," Niall agrees. "Angelina Jolie's arse, man. Or _Black Swan_."

"Are you quite finished trying to picture us wanking with you in the room?" Louis says.

"Well, I didn't mean for us to start trying to picture it," Liam says, "but why? Why would you even do that?"

"Well, _sometimes_ ," Louis says, in the high, emotive voice he gets when he talks to very small children, "when a lad gets an urge--"

"He takes it with him to the toilet like a normal person," Niall finishes.

"You know, you lot have it easy," Zayn says, just this side of defensive. "You never had a bunch of little sisters running around who could walk in on you anywhere."

"Zayn understands," Louis says, tipping his head toward him. "You learn to be quiet and basically how to do it when no one's watching."

"It's not like you get a lot of moments to yourself," Zayn puts in.

"But you can _tell_ us," Liam says. "You can literally just say, 'I'm about to have a wank in the toilet, lads,' and that would be _fine_."

Louis shrugs. "Old habits?" he says, and Zayn nods and points to him.

"I think you're having us on," Harry says in a low voice, and when Zayn looks at him, his eyes have narrowed and his lips are pressed together. "I don't think you've actually done it."

Louis leans forward and stares back at him. "Yeah?" he says.

"I dare you to do it," Harry says, and Zayn scoffs.

"Are you serious?" he asks.

"Oh, here we go," Liam says, half fond and half exasperated.

Louis' eyes are narrowed as well, and he bares his teeth at Harry. "Dare me to what?"

"I dare you," Harry says, "to have a wank in the same room as all of us, where we can't tell you're doing it."

Louis gnaws on his lip, draining it of blood as he stares hard at Harry. "Until I come," he says finally.

"Louis," Zayn says. The room is dead silent but for them, Niall and Liam watching Harry and Louis like they're about to launch at each other's throats. The tension isn't like that, though, Zayn knows. It's not about fighting, this time.

"Until you come," Harry agrees. "And it has to be through your clothes," he adds. "Literally none of us can know."

"Through my clothes is gonna be--" Louis says.

"I promise I'll do your laundry if you do this," Harry swears.

"--a challenge," Louis finishes. "I get to choose the time and place," he declares.

Harry shrugs. "Fine," he says, "but if you pull it off you have to let us know when you've done it."

Louis looks down at his empty shot glass, then back up at Harry. "Deal," he says, and sticks out his hand to shake on it.

**

"I saw an interesting series of paintings the other day," Harry says, over his hand of cards. He slouches and kicks out idly at the post at the corner of Liam's bed. "It was like, about a man who was made up of birds." He sets down four Jacks.

"Like some kind of a bird-man?" Louis asks. "Did he resemble a bird?" he rubs his thigh absently. "Liam, do you have any sixes?" Liam tells him to go fish, and he clicks his teeth as he draws a card himself.

"No, no," Harry says. "He looked like a man, but like, in shadow, through the use of lighting and all that, and then in the next portrait he burst apart, and then all these birds flew away, and the man was gone."

"What kind of birds were they?" Louis says, sitting back with his new card. His fingers curl in his lap, between his crossed legs.

"I dunno," Harry says. "They were greyish, I think. Not completely black."

"Like pigeons?" Louis asks.

"Does it really matter what kind of birds they were?" Liam asks. "Any fours, Niall?"

"Go fish," Niall says.

"Well, if somebody _painted_ them," Louis reasons, "they'd better well know what they look like."

"They might've been ravens anyway, and just looked grey in the light," Zayn suggests, and nudges Louis with his shoulder. "Do you have any twos?"

Louis hands them to him, then scratches the underside of his thigh. "But what is it supposed to _mean_?" he asks. 

"I think it's, like," Harry says tentatively, "supposed to represent how your life isn't really tied to the earth, and you should just, sort of, go with the wind, as long as you're headed in the right... uh, direction." He cringes around a smile as they all think it at the same time. "I didn't mean to bring it back to that," he protests, "I promise."

"You know, there's a video game like that," Niall says, laying out four nines before him. "Or a fight in a video game, where you fight this man, and he's got a raven's head."

Digging his fingers into his armpit, Louis rolls his shoulders and says, "an actual bird-man. I like it." He rubs at his forehead with his thumb and blows at a wisp of hair that's fallen down over it.

"Niall," Harry says. "Do you have any aces?"

"Yeah," Niall says. "And then if you tried to attack him, he'd just turn into a bunch of birds and they'd fly away and you couldn't hit him. Go fish," he tells Harry.

Zayn thinks he's heard of this game, some Silent Hill retread that didn't get such great reviews, but the trailers had looked interesting. "How d'you kill him, then?"

"I think you were supposed to catch him by surprise or something," Niall says. "And just sort of wear him down until he was too weak to transform."

"That sounds sick," Louis says, smoothing the creases down the front of his shirt with his hand. Zayn looks over at him curiously; he's only wearing an oversized t-shirt and jeans, but from the drag of his hand over the fabric Zayn can see that Louis' nipples are hard. "We should get that game," Louis says softly, his voice breaking. "We should look it up." He stares down at his cards, fingers tracing over his ribcage, until Zayn nudges him again. "Niall," he says, head jerking up. "Do you have any sevens?" 

"Go fish," Niall says, and Louis flicks his quiff, which has wilted somewhat since they started playing, in frustration.

"Do you actually have _any_ cards in that hand of yours?" he asks sharply, and wipes at his upper lip with the back of his hand. As Zayn watches, he drops his hand to pinch at the seam of his jeans with his fingers before reaching for the pool to sort through, and Zayn averts his gaze before his face can give it away. It's not something he thinks he would have picked up on if he weren't so close, knees brushing Louis' where they're curled up on the bed.

"Yes, I do," Niall retorts, "but Harry has at least two of the sevens."

There's a pause where everyone turns to Harry, who raises his eyebrows and hides his hand defensively. "Hey," he says. "I'm pretty sure that's cheating."

"I want a do-over," Louis says petulantly. "I want to ask Harry instead." It's not that Louis is doing anything out of the ordinary at first glance, but the next time he squirms and pokes at the underside of his thigh, all Zayn can see is the way the heel of Louis' palm presses against the crease of his groin. A quick glance around the room tells him the others aren't even paying attention, so he licks his lips and forces himself to watch his hand. He's not about to make Louis lose his dare on a technicality.

"I'm pretty sure I've been compromised," Harry argues. "I'm not giving you anything."

"Look," Louis says huffily, his voice going high and reedy, "you've as good as admitted it, so you might as well--"

"How did you even know, anyway?" Liam asks. "Did you count the cards? Is card counting a thing we do?"

Louis' jiggling his leg next to him as he keeps getting louder, and Zayn holds his hands up placatingly. "Listen," he says. "Listen! Can we just tally up the score as it is," he says, "and just start another game or something?"

"Yeah," Louis says. "Yeah, give me the pencil," and he sits on his left hand, filling their loose leaf scoreboard with tally marks with his right. "That would be," he mutters, voice wavering as he writes, "me, with nine cards, Liam with fourteen, Zayn with twelve, and Harry and Niall with--" he snaps the pencil in half between his fingers and slams the broken pieces down on the bed. He pulls his hand into a fist, tugging the bedding up with it. "I win," he rasps, and blows out a shaky breath.

"You--" Harry blinks. "What?"

"Did you--" Liam says, pointing at him.

"You're fucking joking," Niall says.

"Win," Louis says. "Or did you miss me coming? Because I think you did. Which is why I win."

"We were just having a _conversation_ ," Harry says. "We were _arguing_."

"Don't tell me you require physical proof or something, Harry," Louis says, pushing his hair back off his forehead, where it immediately flops again, dampened by the light sheen over his skin.

"Jesus Christ," Niall says in wonder. "He actually came. I had no idea, man, that was really something."

They seem to realise Zayn hasn't said anything, turning to him, and he shrugs, frowning as through grudgingly. "That's impressive, bro," he says. "I can believe it." Louis' face brightens in a grin and he holds up his hand for a high five, which Zayn gives him, letting himself smile back. Louis' breath is still coming a bit quickly, and sweat patches are appearing belatedly at the base of his throat, and over his upper lip. He just came in his pants, Zayn has yet to really accept, even as he glances down in search of a wet patch on the front of Louis' jeans.

"About what I said about your laundry," Harry begins, slowly.

"You don't have to do it," Louis says brusquely, climbing off the bed behind Zayn and resting his hands on Zayn's shoulders for support. "I need a change of clothes," he continues, "so I'll meet you back here later?"

"You realise we have no way of actually knowing if you're telling the truth," Liam calls after him, as he walks to the door. Louis lifts his shirt and moves as though he's about to shove his hand down the front of his jeans, and Liam crumbles, ducking his head and covering his eyes. "No," he yells, "it's all right, we'll take your word for it, we don't need anything!"

"There's a mate," Louis says, and points his index finger at Liam, thumb cocked like a gun, before turning and closing the door behind him.

Niall nudges Harry with his shoulder. "You wanna call it a tie with you and me?"

"No," Harry protests, gathering his stack of cards to his chest possessively. "I think I can win this one. My manly pride's been hurt now."

"Well, get counting," Liam tells them, sweeping the rest of the cards into his play area and moulding them back into a deck, "or I'll just put your cards on top of the stack and give them out to me, Louis and Zayn so we'll have a head start next time." He frowns thoughtfully as he shuffles. "You think Louis touched his card hand with his... you know. Hand?" He glances down at the broken pieces of the pencil. "Not sure about that pencil, if I'm honest."

It's the final straw wearing down on Zayn's resolve, the mention of Louis' hands, Louis' hands touching himself, the way his knee had pressed up against Zayn's thigh the whole time. "Right," he says, unfolding himself and rising from the bed. "If we're taking a break, I'm gonna have a fag, maybe go up to the roof. Catch you in five or whatever." He waves with two fingers and turns to tug down his jeans at the thighs in case they've bunched up around his half-hard cock before striding out. They'll probably think he's going to have a wank or something, he realises; Zayn absolutely doesn't give a fuck if they do.

"We were just reshuffling, it won't be that long," Liam calls after him.

"Nineteen!" Harry shouts victoriously.

"I'll be right back," Zayn tells Liam, and does not adjust himself until he gets out into the hall.

**

When he gets to his room Zayn leans back against his door and he's briefly appalled by the cliché of it; he takes a deep breath and curls his hands down by his flies and waits for the urge to rub his hands over himself to pass. Pulling out his pack of fags, he chucks them down on his bedside table as he sits, and he thinks about how he'd normally call Louis to come up and join him while he smokes. He thinks about how Louis' busy changing his pants right now, because _he came in his pants_ , and huffs a mirthless laugh, muttering, "fuck," as he flicks open the button on his jeans to slide his hand inside.

He works down the zip with his other hand as he kneads at his cock with his fingers, coaxing it to full hardness, and then he pulls it out over the waistband of his pants entirely, licking over his palm and giving himself a few warming strokes. He doesn't have to hide, can be as loud as he'd like, but he told the lads five minutes and the desire to be quick has him resorting to old, familiar behaviours. He'll be late getting back, anyway, and if the boys have come to expect it of him, Zayn isn't going to hurry any more than he has to.

He finds it too easy, really, now that he's seen Louis do it, to imagine how Louis might go about wanking if he were on his own. Zayn can too easily imagine how Louis might look, naked, touching his own nipples, or hands working down below his balls. Zayn traces his thumb over his circumcision scar, always just that bit more sensitive than the surrounding area, and bites his lip as he shudders. He leaks a bit of precome and it's enough to add more slick to his drying saliva.

He wonders if he'd have noticed the change in Louis' voice if he hadn't seen Louis' hands first; if he'd have noticed the way it went high and tight, then raspy and rough after Louis had come. Zayn can feel his own throat constricting as he twists his hand on every upstroke, knows that anything he'd say now would sound raw and gruff, deep and definitely pornographic.

He bucks up into his hand and bites back a groan as though staying silent is the key to coming even faster, and he feels the coil of tension wind in the pit of his stomach. Pushing his thumb up against the underside of his cockhead, he rides it out, taking a sharp breath but holding it in after that, feeling fifteen and stuck baby-sitting his sisters all over again, the memory of Louis' shaky exhale still on his mind. He catches most of the come in his hand and dabs at what he missed on his stomach with a tissue before taking the whole affair to the toilet to wash up.

 _I'm having a fag, you decent?_ he texts Louis, as he gathers his things and stops to check his hair one last time in the mirror. Leaving his shirt untucked, Zayn shrugs on his jacket and checks his phone for the _yeah come on over_ he expects to get before he leaves his room.

Louis answers his door right away when Zayn knocks, wearing the same oversized t-shirt with a pair of joggers and a beanie peeling his hair back off his forehead. He's carrying his shoes in one hand. "Are we going to the roof?" he asks, dropping his shoes and shoving his bare feet inside.

Zayn nods. He eyes Louis from shoes to hair and curls his lip disapprovingly. "You smell like spunk," he says, though Louis doesn't; he has the warm, damp air of the freshly-showered.

Louis curls his lip right back, jutting out his chin. "Well, by all means," he says loftily, pushing past Zayn into the hall, "blow all your smoke on me to get out the stench." He leads with his hip, and Zayn kicks him in the arse as he goes. They're silent as they head into the stairwell and continue on outside; Louis pulls his beanie off and shakes out his damp hair, combing it with his fingers until it flops over his forehead. He hunches his shoulders and puts his hands in his pockets, bouncing in place as Zayn lights up and takes his first puff.

Nodding at Louis, he says, "wet hair means you'll probably catch cold," and Louis jerks his head dismissively.

"I'm letting it air dry," Louis says, and Zayn shrugs.

"Just as long as you don't get the rest of us sick," he says. He bumps Louis' hip with his own. "You're completely mad, you know," he says. "The boys are probably never gonna stop taking the mick out of you for what you did."

Louis ducks his head. "It was a dare," he says haughtily.

"You have no shame," Zayn tells him, shaking his head.

"It was a _dare_ ," Louis says, shrugging, as if to say he was helpless against its power. In a way, Louis is; the single best way to get Louis to do something is to suggest that he can't.

Zayn takes a drag, silent, and blows out the smoke. "Did you ever do it in front of me?" he asks softly.

Louis glances at him sideways, scuffing his toe on the pavement. "What's this?"

"What you said before," Zayn explains. "That you did it in front of three of us. You ever do it in front of me? And I didn't know?"

Louis looks down and his mouth presses into a line Zayn knows means he's considering whether to be honest or make a joke. "I kind of thought you might be..." he shrugs again. "More careful, about that sort of thing. More observant."

"Yeah?" Zayn nods, taking another drag. "I caught on when you were doing it, just now," he says. "You were sat so close to me, I guess, and so." He shrugs as well.

"You," Louis swallows, his face carefully neutral. "You-- caught..." he takes a deep breath. "You didn't say," he says.

"It's not like you were obvious," Zayn says. "I'm observant, like you said. It didn't seem like it'd be fair to call you out on it."

Louis bites his lip for a moment, and then his face splits in a grin. "Because you wanted to watch?" he says, voice full of the easy glee he gets from putting someone else on the spot. "Did you get off on it? Did you get off on knowing I was getting off?"

Zayn simply shrugs, because there's no one for him to be embarrassed in front of. It's just Louis. "What if I said I did?" he asks, putting it back on Louis.

"I might've given you more of a show," Louis says nonchalantly, but he's bouncing more slowly on his toes, distracted.

"I got plenty of a show," Zayn says. "I know the way your voice goes shaky when you come, that's plenty."

"What about you," Louis says, quick to change the subject, shooting him a furtive glance. "Have you ever, with me?"

Zayn grins. "Nah," he says, shaking his head. "You'd never let me live it down if you caught me."

"I wouldn't do that," Louis protests, mock horrified, before a slow smile starts to spread on his face. "Well, _probably_ wouldn't. _Maybe_." He bites his lip.

"I guess it might depend on how long you wanted to drag it out before you called a stop to it, yeah?" Zayn raises his eyebrows at him.

"Oh, is that what it was?" Louis asks, his smile tilting a bit, and Zayn shrugs, taking one last drag and stubbing out the rest of the fag with his boot.

"Let's go back down before the boys have a whole other game without us," he says, and swings the propped-open door wide for Louis to lead the way.

"You all right?" Zayn asks him, and Louis shrugs.

"I'm fine," he says, pressing his lips together. He raises his eyebrows. "Do I still smell like spunk to you?"

Zayn grins and sticks the tip of his tongue out at him between his teeth. "You smell like a flower, Lou," he says.

"The rare Marlboro flower," Louis says.

"Only blooms on rooftops," Zayn agrees.

Back in the room the boys have kept a space respectfully cleared for Louis ("Come on, lads," he says, incredulous, "it's not like I came on the fucking sheets!") and Zayn shares it with him, stretched out and nudging each other where they're pressed together.

It's mostly gently mocking humour the rest of the night, tsks and tuts whenever Zayn or Louis make a motion that might be construed as leading below the belt. "Offside!" Harry barks for the third time, waving his hands in the air and shaking his fringe into his eyes, because Louis has slipped a hand under his shirt to scratch his stomach.

Liam points at Louis with one hand while he drops his cards to shield his eyes with the other. "I'm gonna have to ask you to keep your hands in view at all times, please!"

"Why is no one even questioning Niall on this?" Louis asks peevishly, drawing his hand out from his shirt to waggle his middle finger at them all.

Niall looks up at them, cards held carefully between his teeth as he tugs on the waistband of his jeans with one hand and digs around inside them with the other. "What?" he asks, defiant. "I hazth an itzth."

"That's why we don't question Niall, Louis," Liam says.

**

"Hey," Louis says, cornering Zayn as he tries to make the keycard work in his door. "Hey, can we talk?"

Zayn looks at him, then behind him down the hall. Louis' overshot his own room to follow him, but the other boys are gone. "Sure," he says, pulling his card out of the slot as it flashes green, and letting Louis in ahead of him, feeling the energy thrumming off of him. "You seem stressed."

"Yeah, the thing is," Louis wanders into Zayn's room, unseeing, until Zayn switches on the lights, and then he turns and puts his hands into his pockets. "The thing is," he says, "I lied. I'm not fine. I'm upset."

"Yeah, I can see that," Zayn frowns at him. "That's why I asked if you were all right."

"And I lied," Louis says.

"Apparently," Zayn says. "We lying to each other now?"

"You watching me get off in secret now?" Louis retorts.

"Oh, well, it's not like you got off in front of all of us," Zayn says.

"It wasn't _meant_ for you!" Louis says sharply. "I could put on a show, all right, I could _handle_ that, but it was-- that was _private_ \-- you're-- that's voyeurism," he jabs a finger at Zayn, "is what it is, and it wasn't -- that wasn't part of the dare, I didn't agree to that." His throat hollows as he sucks in a breath, and then he seems to hold it.

Zayn frowns, still recalling so clearly the glimpse of Louis' nipples, hard, through the fabric of his t-shirt, how he'd wondered how close Louis was to coming, how he'd seen Louis ghost his palm over the seam of his jeans. He'd thought he'd been doing Louis a favour, keeping his secret, but he can see how Louis might have considered it his exclusive property, and the damage has been done. He can't forget what he's seen, can't go back and have Louis let him in. "It's not like I can take it back, is it?" Zayn says. Louis' cheeks have high spots of colour on them and he looks furious, and Zayn feels sort of miserable. "I'm sorry, all right?" he says, reaching out to touch Louis' shoulder gently. He rubs at it, tilting his head sympathetically. "I'm sorry," he repeats. "What do you want me to do?"

Louis sets his jaw, eyes narrow. "I want _you_ to do it," he says. "I _dare you_ to."

Zayn shakes his head, giving Louis a rueful smile. "I'll offer, but I'm not you, bro," he says. "I don't need to do anything just 'cause you dare me--"

"I dare you to get off in front of me, while I watch," Louis says right over him, as though he hadn't spoken. "See how that feels."

"But it's not the same, is it?" Zayn points out. "It's not like I was-- I wasn't _staring_ , it's not like I was leering--"

"You just got off on it, that's all," Louis says flatly.

Zayn stares back at him, jaw clenching. He wants to tell Louis those were only words he said, that they don't mean anything, but he already knows Louis will see it for the lie it is. "All right," he says, biting his lip. He lets go of Louis' shoulder and rubs at his chin with his thumb. "All right, fine."

He shrugs helplessly, shoving his hands down into the pockets of his jeans, and backs up until he can sit on the edge of his bed, facing Louis. He has a sudden urge to invite Louis closer, to have him sit by him for some sort of parity. Instead, Louis drops down into the armchair in the corner and spreads his legs, a forced casual stance that's more sullen than eager. Zayn can't help but laugh when Louis crosses his arms as well. "Oh, come on, bro," he throws a hand up in the air. "You're not being fair."

"I'm judging you," Louis says, but uncrosses his arms all the same, and Zayn runs his palm over the swell of his cock soothingly, because the fact is the scene's sort of killed what boner he had. Louis looks cross and bored and Zayn knows he's putting it on, but he wants to make Louis like this despite himself. He wants to turn Louis on.

He tugs his shirt up over his stomach and drags his fingers over it, letting them dip in his belly button, before pushing back down on his cock, fingers barely curling round its outline as he feels himself thicken. He rubs at the insides of his thighs, spreading his legs a bit so he can trail his fingertips across the cushion of his balls as he moves his hands farther and farther up, framing himself between his fingers. He pinches the seam of his jeans to give himself more room and licks his lips, and breaks eye contact with Louis long enough to see that he's toying with his drawstring.

Louis unties and reties the laces over and over, watching Zayn's hands move, and Zayn can't tell if Louis' hard yet, through the motion of his fingers, but when he catches the line of Zayn's gaze, Louis sits up abruptly and tugs his t-shirt down over his hand. Zayn raises his eyebrows at him and smirks around his bitten lip. Hard, then.

He cups himself and drags his thumb down the length of his dick from the button of his jeans to the end of the zip, pressing in and rocking up slightly against it. "What are you thinking?" Louis asks softly, from the corner of the room. His fingers are splayed out over his dick through his joggers like it's easy, like he's relaxed, like he's not been brushing his fingers over the tip of his cock the entire time.

"Are you thinking about me?" Louis says, louder now, egging him on, and Zayn thinks, fuck it, because he never promised he'd be discreet. He never accepted a dare to touch himself as subtly as possible. He pulls his zip down in one swift motion and pushes his fingers inside, fingers curling through the opening in his pants to work over his cock skin to skin. Louis' fingers jerk like he has to stop himself from digging them in, and Zayn encircles his own cock and tugs it out through his flies.

"Zayn," Louis says, hushed and in a rush of breath. His fingers don't move, but his eyes are fixed on Zayn's cock, resting on the back of Zayn's left hand, gripped in his right, and suddenly Zayn doesn't want him to be alone, doesn't want to be doing this alone.

"Come here," he says, and he hears the roughness in his voice, the low edge to it, as he strokes himself slowly.

Louis hesitates. "You-- don't actually have to answer that," he says. "It wasn't part of the dare."

Zayn sighs. "I don't _care_ ," he says. "Just shut up and come _here_." He extends his free hand and beckons, and Louis gets up, letting his shirt fall down over his drawstring, over his erection. He pads over to Zayn until he's just within arm's reach before slowing, and Zayn lets go of his dick to palm Louis' hips. He pulls Louis in sharply and Louis plants a knee up on the bed between Zayn's legs, hands coming up to grip at Zayn's shoulders for balance. Zayn tightens his legs around Louis' and rocks his hips up because the fabric of Louis' joggers is soft and a tease, and Louis digs in with his fingertips.

"I'm not--" Louis glances down between them-- "you don't have to do this, either," he says.

"I'll do as I like," Zayn says, rubbing his hands up and down Louis' hips, pushing higher at the hem of his t-shirt with every pass. "I'm doing it 'cause I want to." He exposes a sliver of Louis' stomach over his drawstring. "I was thinking about you,"  he admits, leaning closer to the tent of Louis' hardon. "I wasn't watching you, I just noticed, all right?" He glances up at Louis to show he means it. "But-- I _wished_ I could've watched. I wished I could've said something and that, you know..." he presses down on the waist of Louis' joggers with his thumbs. "I wished you wouldn't have to stop if I did."

"Zayn, I--" Louis says.

"Shut up," Zayn whispers, as he lowers Louis' joggers and pants and for a moment he just looks, just looks at Louis' cock and thinks about how Louis had been touching it. Louis lets go of Zayn's shoulder and takes his own cock in hand, angles it down and rests the tip on Zayn's lower lip. Zayn looks up to see the question Louis' asking with his eyebrows, and he gives his answer in the form of his mouth closing over the head of Louis' dick.

Louis stays quiet while Zayn sucks him, putting his hand back on Zayn's shoulder and clutching at him, taking quick little breaths and rocking up onto his toes to lean farther in on the knee between Zayn's legs. It's enough pressure on Zayn's cock to keep him hard and interested, and Zayn digs his fingers into Louis' arse, letting himself think of how much more mellow this is, how much quieter than the handful of other times he's done this, kneeling on the floors of club toilets or the loo at house parties. He can hear every little sigh Louis makes and the wet sounds of his own mouth as Zayn swirls his tongue around him, takes him in deep and pulls nearly entirely off again and again.

He wants to tell Louis he doesn't have to be quiet, tell Louis to make some noise if he wants to, but more than that he doesn't want to stop, doesn't want to give up the slick slide of Louis' cock between his lips. Louis' hand flies up to the back of Zayn's hair and he pushes at Zayn's shoulders as he bucks forward suddenly, and then he's coming with a whimper, groping down the length of Zayn's body and palming awkwardly at Zayn's cock while Zayn holds him, sucking him down, tasting all of him.

"Zayn," Louis says again, as he pulls away with a gasp, tucking himself hastily in. He pushes Zayn back up on the bed, hands roaming over his stomach and fingers toying with the button of his jeans before he flicks it open. His breath is hot near the waistband of Zayn's pants and he presses open-mouthed kisses to the skin beneath Zayn's navel, the wings of his hipbones, roaming nearer but not touching Zayn's cock.

"I-- I was thinking about you," Louis confesses abruptly, his voice still a bit low and raspy. "You were _right there_ , right next to me, and I just-- I thought-- I thought about how you might figure out what I was doing, and like, what you might say, if you knew. I was thinking--" he turns his head and presses his cheek against Zayn's dick, muffling his words into the flaps of Zayn's flies-- "I was thinking about what I'd do if you told me."

"What would you have done?" Zayn asks, licking his lips because they've somehow gone dry, watching Louis' fingers flex in the loops of his jeans. "If I told you? If I told you it was hot?"

"I don't know," Louis admits, shaking his head, and his lips brush the underside of Zayn's erection. "I don't know, I--" he draws back enough to tug Zayn's pants down and he licks a stripe up his cock from base to tip.

Louis' shaking, Zayn realises, like even though he's just come he's still too turned on to come down. His breath puffs hot and fast over Zayn's dick as he licks him again before finally sucking him down with a low moan, eyelashes fluttering dark over his cheeks. Zayn can't keep from hissing as Louis sucks him hard, tongue pressing relentlessly under his cockhead, and Louis tugs once more at the loops of Zayn's belt before letting go entirely, arms spreading until his hands fist in the bedding at either side of Zayn's thighs. Zayn reaches down, gasping, to touch Louis' fingers, stroking at them, and Louis grasps Zayn's fingers in his own, squeezing and relaxing the suction just enough to let Zayn catch his breath.

They push and pull at each other until Zayn isn't sure who's holding on to whom, reduced to soft pants of air as he tries not to rock up too hard into Louis' mouth now that he's going down on Zayn properly and not trying to suck his brain out through the tip of his cock. He was close already anyway, so it's not long before he's tensing, flush with arousal, stomach muscles going rigid. "I'm close, I'm close," he says, and Louis starts to suck him through it before he pulls back, of _course_ he does, hollowing his cheeks until his cheekbones stand out in sharp relief as he retreats, pink lips tight around him, tonguing Zayn's slit with every pulse of his orgasm until Zayn's whimpering from between his bitten lips, trying to twist away.

Louis releases him and Zayn shudders at the exposure of air on his bare cock, tries to tug his pants back up with fingers just a bit uncoordinated. "Do you reckon we're even now?" he says, trying out the gruffness of his voice on Louis. "Are we all right?"

Wordlessly, Louis lowers his head to Zayn's hipbone and lets go of Zayn's hands, crossing his arms possessively over Zayn's stomach. "I think," he says, rubbing Zayn's bare skin with his fingers, "I think you failed the dare, actually."

Zayn holds his breath in disbelief until Louis tilts back up to look at him, and then bursts into a laugh that sets Louis off. "You can't be serious," Zayn says.

"Well, _technically_ ," Louis says, cringing sympathetically, "you didn't actually get off by yourself."

"Because you didn't specify," Zayn argues, which he knows will earn him a point. Louis is a stickler for details. "You already said this wasn't part of the dare, anyway."

"I thought you said you were offering," Louis says, a bit softer.

And there it is. "I want--" Zayn begins, then looks down his chest at his cock, only halfway tucked-in, flies open, Louis' chin digging into his hipbone. He tries to sit up, dislodging Louis and tucking himself in properly. "Sorry," he mutters, when Louis makes a shocked noise and rolls over to kneel beside him. "I don't feel like having my dick out for this conversation."

He sighs, tugging his shirt back down over his jeans and laying out again. Louis stays where he is, on his knees. "I want to be able to offer," Zayn says. "You know? Like, to be able to do things like look at you. I want to be able to look, and, I dunno, be able to make you feel like this," he waves a hand between them, "without all the shit we've been talking at each other." He extends a hand, palm up on the bed. "Can we just do that?"

Louis looks at Zayn's hand, then at his own hands, resting primly on his knees. "Is that an offer?" he asks.

Zayn nods, doesn't beckon, waits on Louis this time. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'm offering," and he feels like a weight of something is growing in his chest, only to release when Louis slowly curls his hand into a fist and places it in the centre of Zayn's palm.

This time when Zayn tugs on Louis' hand, Louis doesn't tug back, leans down and stretches out more or less over Zayn's chest, leg thrown over him. "I'd offer to kiss you," Louis says lightly, "but I don't know you feel about tasting back your own come."

Zayn can't ever remember that being a problem, and he chuckles and rolls his eyes. "I bet I feel better about it than you," he says, and Louis tweaks his nipple between nimble fingers before leaning up and touching his closed lips to Zayn's. They kiss just like that for a moment, before Zayn licks at the seam of Louis' lips and presses inside, their mouths slotting together while Louis' arms encircle Zayn's middle. Zayn tastes himself on Louis' tongue and he wonders if Louis can taste himself in Zayn's mouth, too, trying to remember if he's ever done this, gone both ways with someone and tried to taste it back. He kisses Louis until he can't taste anything anymore, until they taste like each other, their lips wet and swollen and their jaws aching, until they start to doze, humming sleepily into one another's mouths. He pulls back, one hand on the back of Louis' neck, and Louis grins at him.

"I dare you to--" Louis says.

"Don't even start," Zayn says, and pushes at him until he rolls off of Zayn, cackling into his hand.

 

end.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the lovechild of a cracked-out premise and a number of Zouis Tumblr fic prompts. So many thanks to disarm_d, who kept me from chucking this more than once, and to theprincessed and aliferuined for all of their support!
> 
> [Tumblr](http://randominitea.tumblr.com/) | [LJ](http://randominity.livejournal.com/)


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